Whether you’re using the free Google Analytics tools or a premium solution like Omniture, there are many metrics and reports that can help you understand how customers use your site and how your campaigns are performing. Here is a quick list of five valuable things web analytics can do for you:
1. Referring sites and conversions. It’s crucial to know which web properties are sending you traffic, especially if you have an affiliate program, use pay-per-click advertising or comparison shopping engines, buy banner ads or text links on other sites or invest in organic search engine optimization campaigns. When you tie conversion rates and ROI to referring sources, you can make informed decisions on which campaigns to invest more time and money in, and which to axe.
2. Referring keywords and conversions. Like referring sites, you can track which keywords are driving traffic, and even segment your organic (free) search traffic from paid search. When you have high converting, organic keywords that don’t send much traffic, you may want to focus your SEO efforts on raising your rank. Or, if you’re spending a lot of money on a keyword that doesn’t convert, you should look to improve your landing page, spend less on your keyword or “kill†it completely.
3. Measure engagement with your content. Most analytics tools offer a feature that allows you to “see†where customers are clicking. Where do customers typically click from your home page? From each category page? From your Help section? Do they click on your featured products, or go straight to the search box? Bounce rate (the percentage of visitors who enter your site and leave within 5-10 seconds) is another indication of engagement. View your top entrance pages and observe each page’s bounce rate. Very high bounce rate pages should be looked at more carefully—are they delivering the offers and products that people expect from the keywords that referred the visits?
4. Measure split-test results. If you’re doing A/B or multivariate testing on your design, copy, offers or even color and size of your add-to-cart button, you can’t measure results without analytics!
5. Funnel analysis. Why do customers abandon the cart before completing a purchase? Could it be a glitch in your checkout process? Analyzing your funnel reports can catch problems that are killing your conversions.
Interested in learning more? A great resource for non-techie e-marketers is Web Analytics: An Hour a Day by Avinash Kaushik. It covers what analytics is, which metrics are important (and which are not important at all), how to choose a tool, how to find a good analyst, and how to turn data into information that can help make better business decisions. Avinash reently joined Elastic Path Software for a webinar 3 Things to Die For: Web Analytics Unleashed. This free, e-commerce focused session is available on replay, and previous e-commerce webinars are available here.
Linda Bustos is an e-commerce consultant for Elastic Path Software and blogs daily here.
Tags: avinash kaushik, e-commerce, elastic path software, Electronic Retailer, Google, linda bustos, multivariate testing, Web Analytics
[...] 5 Reasons E-tailers Must Use Web Analytics [...]
Another alternative to analytics user tracking tool available on the net is mvispy.com I have been using the service for past few months and it has worked out well for me. I have been able to do live user tracking. This is an excerpt from their website.
Watch visitors arrive at your site move from page to page, all the time gathering information about where the visitor came from, what keyword they used to find your site, displaying visitors ARIN information, what pages they visit, and communicate via live chat.
Watching visitor’s activity as it happens provides immediate knowledge of how visitors react to your web site and gives a perfect way to test any new site changes quickly.
MVI SPY tracks visitors as it happens and, at the same time, updates the database of traffic history to provide detailed web analytics. Analytics enables 80 web site statistics and reports, while allowing you to personalize the view that works for you.
MVI SPY provides a view of your web site’s traffic by tracking only visitors and does not display visiting spiders or bots. By excluding certain site visitors, such as your company staff, the displayed site visitors are very usable marketing tests of your site pages.